Monday, May 02, 2005

My review of 'A Lot Like Love'

In a normal world one of those phrases would not belong. This past weekend proved to me the, at times, the world exceeds my lowered expectations and presents mankind with a movie worthy of praise.

I'll admit to being a bit disappointed at the selection of films when we arrived at the mini-multiplex Friday night. I asked Mary what she wanted to see and she presented two choices. I asked her to choose one and she tip-toed around a decision and asked me to choose.

I decided that I would rather pour seven-alarm habanero pepper sauce into my hollowed out eye sockets than force myself to hold back vomit from watching Jimmy Fallon in a movie. (A note of career advice for Fallon, BEG Lauren Michaels to let you back on SNL... even as one of the 'lowly' featured performers.)

So there you have it, we arrived at a decision to purchase two tickets for 'A Lot Like Love'.

I was delighted to see that the movie started with a flashback. Okay, it wasn't really the true flashback in the purest sense of the word. It actually began with the first scene set seven years ago. That scene, as it turns out, plays an important part towards the end of the film.

I have never been a fan of Amanda Peete but her performance was above par. (Remember 'Saving Silverman' - makes a person love to hate her.)

To make things less lengthy, it is a love story. It isn't the typical boy meets girl, boy dates gile, boy marries girl story, though. Maybe that's what made me like this movie.

The numerous time-shifts beginning from the start point of seven years ago kept things from getting bogged down by a continual, single-date timeline. The abrupt but yet smooth time transitions picked up the pace of the movie and kept me interested.

It teaches a couple fine points. Sometimes, a person you meet only briefly can effect your life in unimaginably large ways and never be disappointed if your seven-year plan fails. Sometimes a failure is the best thing that can happen.

I have an eerie feeling that this might be one that ends up in our growing DVD library.